You Can Overcome Lack Of Self Confidence

October 22, 2008

Lack of self confidence may feel like a huge barrier, which prevents you from achieving your dreams. And it can, if you let it. Without self confidence, it’s almost impossible to do the things you need to, in order to achieve your goals.

But the good news is, that barrier to self confidence isn’t a barrier at all. If you look at it carefully, you’ll see that it’s really a hurdle for you to jump over, because lack of self confidence is something you can overcome.

You Were Born With Self Confidence

If you’re like I used to be, you probably look in awe, at folks who seem to have an abundance of self confidence. Wouldn’t it be amazing, if you too had been born as confident as they were? But the truth is, we’re all born with self confidence. If we weren’t, we’d never be able to achieve the bold and difficult task of pulling ourselves up onto our feet and taking those first few steps.

We Don’t Inherit Lack Of Self Confidence – We Learn It

“It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” ~ Sally Field

It’s what happens after we’re born, that causes us to lack self confidence, or have heaps of it. If we’re praised constantly for our achievements and encouraged to do things that will take us out of our comfort zone, we’re less likely to have self confidence issues in the future.

But if those around us are constantly pulling us to bits and telling us not to bother trying new things, because we’ll fail, there’s a good chance we’ll be lacking in self confidence later in life.

And it’s not just the way other folk treat us, that causes us to lack self confidence. It can also be something we learn through watching others. If a parent, or close relative has a low self esteem, we’re more likely to copy their actions and negative beliefs.

If I Can Turn My Life Around So Can You

No matter how much you lack self confidence, you can still turn your life around. I should know, for many years, I had the self confidence of a gnat. And the trouble is, when you’re constantly being put down by folk around you, you begin to believe what you’re hearing.

So, I went through the first couple of decades of my life with a massive inferiority complex. I truly believed that everyone was better than me and no matter what the task was, I was always the worst performer. And things got worse before they got better.

In my early twenties, I suffered a violent attack which resulted in me suffering PTSD and also having a nasty scar on my face. By then, I rarely had the self confidence to leave the house alone. I’d hit rock bottom.

Rock Bottom Can Be Good For You

Hitting rock bottom can do you the world of good, because unless you decide to stay there, the only way you can go is up. And you no longer have to worry about making things worse than they are already.

Had that terrible thing not happened and I hadn’t wound up with PTSD, I probably wouldn’t have improved my life at all. I’d have drifted along, with the same lack of self confidence I had before. But I didn’t – I turned my life around and you can do the same.

You Have To Believe You’re Worth It

If you want to overcome lack of self confidence, you have to believe you’re worth saving. And you are. Remember – no matter how worthless other people have made you feel – it is not you that’s the problem, it’s them.

Folk who deliberately destroy the confidence of others have major problems. Things like jealousy, self esteem issues and desire to control are some factors that make them behave the way they do. But the important thing is, that you take steps to prevent them crushing your self confidence further.

Break All Ties With These Confidence Sucking Bullies

Toxic relationships can have a devastating effect on your self confidence. And if you can, try to break all ties with these confidence sucking bullies. And if you don’t feel that this is possible, at the very least, try to minimize contact with them.

Folk who lack self confidence when they’re younger, often wind up married to folk who treat them badly. Trouble is, these bullies tend to seek you out, because they realise you have self confidence issues. So you’re an easy target for them.

And if you’re in that type of marriage yourself, you’d be far better off ending it now. You’ll struggle to improve your self confidence, if you live with someone who’s constantly chipping away at it.

Same goes for friendships. If you hang out with someone who constantly makes you feel bad or puts you down, stop letting them attack your self confidence. Even if you’ve been friends with someone for years – if they deliberately make you feel bad, you’ll be doing yourself a huge favour if you walk away from the relationship.

What About Folk You Can’t Cut Off – Like Family?

Cutting ties with family members who try to damage your self-confidence isn’t so easy and for some people it’s just not possible. But you can still find ways to prevent them from having such a negative impact on your confidence, while you’re trying to re-build it. For a start, you could minimise contact with those who put you down and avoid being in the type of situation where they try to pull you to bits.

Once you’ve managed to break-off, or minimise contact with the confidence sucking folk in your life, there’s plenty of exercises you can use to banish your lack of self confidence for good. Here’s some of my favourites:

Exercise 1: Overcome Lack Of Self Confidence: Remind Yourself Of The Good Things.

“Self-confidence is the memory of success” ~ Author Unknown

Can you remember any good things folk have said about you in the past? Or a time you achieved something you felt proud of? It can be anything, no matter how small it seems. If you’re able to do that – it’s half the battle. And if you can’t think of anything right now – move onto another exercise, you can always try this one later.

Now – with that thought in your head about a good thing someone has said about you, or a thing you’ve achieved that made you proud, do the following:

Pinch your hand, or your ear, or anywhere that feels comfortable for you and while you’re doing so, keep that good thought in your head.

Try to do this simple exercise at least daily. And whenever you’re in a situation where you’re feeling less confident, or if someone has said something to put you down, do that little pinch and remember the good thought instead. Once you’ve done this a few times, the pinch will instantly remind you of the good thought.

Exercise 2: Overcome Lack Of Self Confidence: Reinvent Your Past

Reinventing your past, can be a powerful way to boost your self confidence. The idea is to trick your mind into believing that you’ve always been confident, always received unlimited amounts of praise and you’ve never been afraid to try new things.

Now I know you might be wondering whether it’s wise to trick your own mind. But don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe to do exercise like this. Remember, your mind is manipulated constantly by everything you hear, see and read. That’s why you lack self confidence. And you’re tricking your mind yourself to achieve from a positive outcome.

The easiest way to do this is through writing, but if you don’t like writing, you can always use a dictaphone and play your recording back to yourself. Or if you like drawing, you could draw pictures of these past events instead.

Re-Write Your History

You can rewrite the story of your past anyway you want, but writing in the first person is probably best – eg: “I walked up the hill, as opposed to She walked up the hill.”

You should try this exercise every day, for at least 30 days. And each time, make up situations where you did something well and received praise for doing so. And also write stories about difficult activities you attempted and how great you felt about yourself afterwards.

These activities don’t have to be things you’ve already done. You can choose things you’ve always wanted to try, but write as though you’ve already done them.

Try to add as much detail as possible, to make these situations feel real to you and read them back to yourself afterwards. Don’t worry, if you’re not writing prize winning fiction. Remember nobody else is going to read this stuff, it’s just for you, so switch off your internal editor as you write.

If you find it difficult to come up with situations to begin with, pick out situations from your past where you lacked self confidence, or someone put you down. And re-write the outcome so it’s a positive one.

If neither of these ideas appeal – you could pay a hypnotist to help you improve your self confidence.

Exercise 3: Challenging Yourself Will Boost Your Self Confidence

By taking small steps and challenging yourself to do things that make you feel a bit uncomfortable, you’ll gradually build your self-confidence. And the more you manage to achieve, the more confident you will feel.

Depending on how you feel about yourself already – you may want to try something like going shopping or swimming alone. Or maybe you want to take a class, or learn an instrument or language.

An great way to accomplish these tasks is to write them down. It’s probably easier to do this on a weekly basis.

Write a list of things you want to achieve that week which you don’t feel confident about doing. Choose the first one and write down how you feel about attempting this task and what you think the outcome will be.

And once you’ve done that particular task, go back to your list and write down how you felt once you’d done it. Then compare it to what you wrote down before you attempted the task.

Most of the time, you will find that you felt a lot better after you’d done the task, than you did before-hand. And that will give you the confidence to try more new things.

3. I feel that its important to choose the right occupation and/or hobbies which are in alignment with your natural areas of strength, talent, ability and motivation. When I worked as an accountant, although I was good with numbers, my occupation was a poor match to my areas of natural ability, and it just didn’t feel ‘right’ to me at all.

I found that by just jumping into situations my self confidence has increased significantly. It helps to remember that you don’t have to have all the answers all of the time. Stacey writes about Personal Development

Comments

Hi Catherine – I certainly find it commendable how you turned your life around and proceeded to become a business woman (in a man’s world). It couldn’t have been easy, but certainly by you teaching yourself how to build up your own self confidence, you did it. Kudos to you.

I agree, others can expose us to so much verbal abuse our self confidence and self esteem ends up in the toilet. Those are toxic relationships that no one should have to endure. Thank goodness you’ve found your voice.

As somebody who has always been fairly confident (apart from certain times in high school), I’m actually more impressed by those people who manage to deal with a lack of confidence, than those who are confident. I couldn’t imagine going for years with a lack of confidence, but many people do. It’s sad to see, but at the same time it’s quite amazing.

My own tip to gain confidence is just to find that one thing you’ve always wanted to do. The one thing you’ve wanted to do for all your life. Start a business. Sky dive. Bungee jump. Swim with Dolphins. And then just do it. Stop thinking about it. Just do it. You’ll have the biggest high of your life and come out of it thinking you can beat anything and anyone.

Hi Cath, this is a marvelous and comprehensive plan. I think being analytical about lack of confidence can have a disassociating or depersonalizing effect, making it easier to move when a person is ready. You’re somewhat less emotionally vested so you can make a break. Lack of self-confidence and depression are good buddies. If you an look at your situation from an outside perspective instead of feeling trapped inside it, you begin liberation.

One thing about bullies: in the short term, if you change the rules, they’re going to be very unhappy. They attempt to return to the status quo by escalating their behavior. It can get even more ugly depending upon how valuable the bully finds the dynamic. You see it time and time again with abusive marriages. The person trying to make the break gives in and the cycle starts all over again.

Isn’t it interesting that bullies often lack self-confidence as well? They think they’re getting some by positioning themselves as better than you in their own esteem. They know they are nothing without your participation in the dynamic, so when you change the terms, they must fight for what they need.

Standing up for yourself against a bully, or to get yourself actively participating in a world outside the barrier of low self-confidence, is one of the most difficult things anyone will do. And as you pointed out, most severe cases (like me) have to wallow around in the muck at the bottom of Lake Despair before we push up toward the surface and break through into the light.

The issue of self esteem is one which has required work in my own life and will require further effort in the future.

Accordingly, I don’t really feel qualified to give tips, but I will try one.

I feel that its important to choose the right occupation and/or hobbies which are in alignment with your natural areas of strength, talent, ability and motivation. When I worked as an accountant, although I was good with numbers, my occupation was a poor match to my areas of natural ability, and it just didn’t feel ‘right’ to me at all.

When I made a change and started teaching English, the new role came more naturally to me as I love the English language and I have considerably more natural talent in the ‘people’ orientated environment of teaching than I ever did in the ‘process’ orientated environment of accounting.

Hi Barbara – thank you. I honestly believe that if I could do it, anyone can. You know – I almost didn’t do it at all – at one point, I was beginning to accept that my life was kind of over.

Toxic relationships are bad for anyone’s confidence aren’t they? And they can seem quite difficult to escape from – but once you actually do it, you realise it’s not that difficult at all.

Hi Jamie – thank you. That’s a great tip – and so true. Achieving an awesome goal like that does give people the confidence to believe they can do anything they want.

Hi Betsy – That’s a brilliant point re: Bullies. If they realise you want to break free, they do tend to make your life more difficult in order to stop you from doing so. I’m going to add this to the further reading section too.

Hi Andrew – I can imagine that someone would feel far less confident doing something that didn’t match their natural abilities. And doing as you did and changing direction, enables you to do something which you shine at. And that would definitely make you feel more confident.

Hi Cath, My hat is off to you for writing such an honest, informative, useful, and inspiring post. I’ve been close to many people over the years with serious self confidence issues. I wish I could go back in time and share what you’ve written with a few of them. It’s so easy to just give up. My self confidence goes up and down. I feel I’m at my best when I’m really living in the moment. My self esteem goes down when I start obsessing about past or future worries. Maybe I should start meditating again … Thanks again for this awesome post.

Hi Rita – thank you. I know it must sound crazy to some people that PTSD has been helpful. And you know as well as I do that it can be a bloody awful thing. But I do think it has helped me to build my confidence.

Hi Chris – thank you. I figured I would experiment with some longer posts. Just knowing that it’s is learned and can be unlearned will hopefully help some folk.

Hi Brad – Askimet got you again. Thank you – Thinking about the past and future instead of living in the moment does make things worse doesn’t it? I think you should start meditating again – it certainly helps me a lot. I will add that to the resources section.

What a great resource Cath. Reframing the past is an excellent tool for raising your self-confidence. A lot of the time self-confidence problems arise not so much from what happened, but how we interpreted what happened. I also like self-hypnosis and breaking ties with those who try to suck our self confidence. I’ve often found that jealousy is often the reason why people put others down. Also, another tool that I use which helps to build self-confidence is visualizing the desired outcome to an event while I’m meditating.

Cath, I’m so glad you’ve written about the importance of self confidence as well as the effects of dealing with toxic relationships and toxic family members. Having low self confidence or low self esteem is something we learn by our personal experiences in life and how we’re treated by others from the time we’re very young and into adulthood.

That in itself makes it important for parents to really give serious thought to the words and attitudes we may unknowingly be dumping on our children and how our words and actions may be creating low self confidence in our children, in order to begin taking necessary steps to build up self confidence in ourselves as well as our children. The effects can be very long lasting and detrimental to not only our own well-being, but also that of our kids.

You asked about any resources. How about this one that discusses both toxic relationships AND toxic family members and necessary actions to take when dealing with either one?

LOL Cath, after I clicked on “submit comment” it cracked me up that my “last blog post” was listed as the rising blogger (something from a long time ago LOL). My most recent one, as you well know, was about How to Quit Smoking. LOL!!!

Hi Cath. I read this last night and had to go away and marinate in a response. The first thing that came to mind when I finished reading this was, “You’re a doll!” I so appreciated the genuine truth you shared here — the softer side of you

I liked the idea that we are born with self-confidence and any perceived lack is learned through reacting to life’s experiences. And to echo many of the other comments, it is inspiring to read how you turned an unfortunate experience into a positive opportunity for growth. “You have to believe you’re worth saving.” — this is SO important! Thanks Cath!

That was a very well written and very powerful post. With a lot of great resources as well. I am one of those people who knows full well what the bottom of a barral looks like so I could relate to a lot of what you wrote.

I also know that self-confidence can come and go, so if it happens to be missing at the moment, don’t dispair, that doesn’t mean it’s gone forever, Figuring out what message you are learning from the present situation and taking the first action step needed for change is often the first quick step toward moving in the right direction.

Hi Cath, I like the idea of using hypnosis to deal with self confidence issues. I’ve seen how hypnosis can help. It works on the subconscious levels and can generate effective results than a lot of other methods. Thanks for sharing how difficult your personal life journey had been for you. It takes courage to write about these kind of stuff, I know. And I applaud you for daring to share!!

Hi Davina – I LMAO when I first read this – does this mean I usually come across as a bossy dragon?

Convincing yourself you’re worth it is a really important part of regaining your self confidence. And we’re all worth it.

Thanks for the resource Lin. As you say – sometimes folk don’t realise what harm they’re doing to their children – they say things without giving it proper thought. And they do a whole heap of damage without realising. I guess, as parents, it’s something we’ve all got to be careful of.

Hi Jannie – I must admit I’ve suffered that problem in the past too. I think that once you’ve found something you really really love doing, you’ll find it easier.

Hi Robin – Thank you. I guess your self-esteem issues contributed to the inability to allow yourself to feel your emotions, that you mentioned in your last post.

I vaguely remember that book, but I don’t think I read it. It was out a really long time ago.

Hi Rita – LOL – I always knew you were Stephen King in disguise. I bet some folk do exactly what you just said. It would require a lot of creativity if they had to keep it up every day.

But, if their fake self was a huge improvement on their real experience, it could have a positive impact on them in the long run. And if their story was interesting enough – it would certainly bring them attention.

This is not exactly the same thing – there’s a lot of fakers out there who claimed to have made heaps of cash just to attract attention. And it worked. I know who some of them are, as they sometimes change their story a little and forget that some people might remember the original.

Hi Wendi – That’s a really good point. Sometimes it does come and go doesn’t it? But as you say – it’s not lost forever and sometimes it’s part of a learning experience,

Hi Kathy – you caught me out. That is bad news. You stick to your guns and keep them firmly shut out of your life.

Cath,
My first thought was about a T shirt I saw on my daughter’s nursery school teacher. It said, “it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.” and what a release that was for me from my sibling abuse situation. I think I had enough confidence to always make lemonade out of life’s lemons, but I needed to keep quiet about it and not stick out to survive.
My second thought is this is my new neighbor’s tenth birthday and she just radiates that girl confidence and joy that seems to disappear for females later in life. I hope we who have gone before can preserve some of that “spunk” in the next generation?
Very well written piece and well presented. Thank you for sharing your story and your turning point .
I have found I must find a point of “discomfort” in order to achieve the best changes and most lasting changes in my life – many have been very painful.
Thank you for all your suggestions and insights. I learned something new today – and that is always a great gift.

Hi Davina – Thanks. I asked Stuart and he thinks I am bossy. I did point out that I’m used to telling him what to do, because he used to work for me. He said he doesn’t work for me now – he’s my husband. Stupid me – I thought that was the same thing.

Hi Ian – Thank you. That’s weird, I was just saying last night that I hadn’t heard from you in a while. And don’t apologise for being busy – busy is good.

I’m glad visualization has been working for you. And what you say is so true. If someone else managed to do all these things, so can you.

Hi Patricia – Thank you. What a brilliant t-shirt slogan. And what you say about discomfort is so true. No pain, no gain, as they say.

You’re right about hitting bottom being a great tool for turning things around. It was only after I spent time on a cocktail of anti-depressants and not grasping the fundamentals of how to live a life (honest – I couldn’t even speak because I couldn’t grasp the thread of conversations) that I built myself back together piece by piece. It sucked – big time – but I don’t regret it.

Also like your insight about shifting perspective and giving a new meaning to things. Our brains are a big machine that gives meaning to all the information it takes in, and sometimes it attaches a meaning to something that gets in our way or reduces the opportunity. Figuring out what something actually means to you can be incredibly liberating.

You’re also right about challenge. Your confidence grows when it’s stretched – just like muscle tissue. That’s why I always say that you’re as confident as you need to be to live the life you’re living right now, because your confidence is the perfect size to deliver against what’s required of it.

To have, do or be more – to live a bigger life – you need to stretch yourself. That’s when you give your confidence a chance to grow.

Hi Cath – I am sorry about the attack. It seems that you found a way to use something so terrible to turn your life around.

I’ve struggled with confidence for most of my adult life. I’m not sure where there lack of it came from as my mother was always very encouraging. Though it may have grown through a series of negative relationships.

My marriage fell apart at the beginning of this year and the events that transpired were truly devastating. But they made me turn my life around too. I started my blog and have started freelancing to do the work I’ve always wanted to do. Blogging and building a community is very helpful in building confidence. I wouldn’t have done these things even a year ago because I wouldn’t have thought that I was good enough.

It’s funny though – people tell me that they think I’m very confident when they first meet me and they are surprised when they discover that I’m not. Maybe it’s the way I walk

[...] started laying out some longer posts, to benefit time starved readers to, beginning with this one: You Can Overcome Lack Of Self Confidence. The idea is, that if you’re in a rush – you still get the main points of the article from [...]

[...] You Can Overcome Lack Of Self Confidence: We’re all born with self confidence. It’s what happens afterwards that builds us up, or brings us down. But no matter what happens, we can build our self confidence again – and if I can do it, anybody can. [...]

Thank you so much for posting this. I have been following these tips and my life has been transformed. Before I was a wreck, divorced, unemployed, treated like a doormat by everyone. Now it feels like I am really turning my life around – I’ve got a gret new job, a girlfriend half my age, and I feel I owe it all to you.
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!